


Shelbyville

by wowthatsloud



Category: Haven - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-05-18
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowthatsloud/pseuds/wowthatsloud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jennifer goes missing and they need to find her, they end up encountering unexpected things along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Overreaction

**Author's Note:**

> Set in late season 4, but with some amendments: Duke still has his trouble, Jordan's not gone, and Audrey went back into the sucky vortex other-world hole as a good guy, and they're trying to figure out how to get her back.
> 
> None of these characters are mine. Not even the ones I invented myself.

Sunday mornings were always the highlight of Duke’s week. There was something about the grey light of the early morning streaming in through the gap in his curtains, slowly washing the room out in faded colour, blinking him awake, that made it the most peaceful time in the world for him. Lately, he’d begun looking forward to the addition to those mornings of finding Jennifer beside him, but she was a frightfully early bird, usually leaving the spot next to him in bed cold and empty long before Duke was made aware of the liquor induced thrum in his head he often nursed from nights before.

As soon as he awoke on this particular Sunday, however, he felt it instantly that something was off. Instead of taking luxuriously long time getting out of bed as usual, he was straight up, grabbing a shirt and his phone, going to the kitchen to grab an apple as he hit Jennifer’s number on speed-dial and began to get dressed. Duke set the phone to speaker and put it down before he did so, listening to the slow, empty dial tone as he tugged on a pair of trousers, and swearing as he was answered by a polite, but distinctly robotic male. “The number you have dialled is not currently available, please try aga-”

He was cut off by Duke’s jab of the end call key. Duke bit into the shiny red delicious, forcing himself to sit, forcing himself to calm down. Where was Jennifer normally, besides with him? She was often at the coffee shop for long hours, ‘watching the day’ as she put it, and enjoying what was apparently the best brownie in all of Maine. She’d also been at the book store quite a bit recently, having struck a friendship with the owner’s niece, who worked shifts there. Yes, he’d check there, of course he would. Yet the thought could not stop Duke from clenching and unclenching his hands, standing and sitting as he eyed the frying pans he would normally be using to make a big, hearty breakfast at this time – maybe an egg white omelette and toast, or sausages and bacon, or all of those. He could cook something up in time for Jennifer’s arrival, but the itch in his conscience and his side and his heart told him it wasn’t happening like that today.

Duke was on his way to the police station. He made cursory stops at the coffee shop and the book store two blocks away, knowing that’s all they would be, and fully expecting his inquiries being answered in the negative. When he arrived at his final destination, it was past the lethargic little waiting room straight to the head of all this.

“Dwight, Jennifer’s gone!”

Never one to miss a moment of drama, Duke crashed open Dwight’s office door just as the clock above the doorway nudged past noon. Dwight took a moment, slowly closing his eyes and counting up to five in his head.

Dammit, why? It was Sunday. Dwight would have been packing up in a half an hour or so, gathering his things to head home and spend the Sunday the way it was made to be spent – resting quietly with a book to read.  
“Hello? Mister Chief, I kinda just mentioned that Jennifer is missing,” Duke pointed out, arms still hung in the air from his dynamic entrance. Silence followed.  
“I heard you,” Dwight said dully, taking a few more seconds before finally opening his eyes. “When was the last time you saw her?”  
“Yesterday,” Duke said. Dwight barely kept himself from rolling his eyes, and seeing the look flash across his face, Duke added, “But I haven’t heard from her. Usually she’d drop a line or something.”  
“Well have you asked around? Talked to people, seen where she could have been?”  
“Yes,” Duke said triumphantly. “Nobody’d seen her. This town isn’t that big man, something is up.”  
“So what do you want me to do,” Dwight asked. “Put out an APB? Because I could do that, but first you would need to file an official missing persons report, which can only be done once the person has been gone for more than twenty-four hours. Even then, once it’s processed and sent out to every local police station in the country, it’ll go to the bottom of their pile since she’s not a minor. Listen, if you-”  
“Tell me to relax, Dwight, I swear…” Duke began pacing the floor of Dwight’s office at this.  
“I’m just saying give it a couple of hours,” Dwight snapped back. “She’ll be at home watching television by the time you get back.”  
Nathan poked his head around the corner to see what the raised voices and commotion was all about.

“Everything okay?” he asked tentatively.  
“Fine.”  
“No!” Both men gave their answers simultaneously, and the force with which both were given made Nathan step in fully now, assessing both men’s body language and the situation.  
“What’s going on,” Nathan demanded.  
“Jennifer is missing, and Mr Bureaucracy doesn’t want to get off his lazy ass and do something.”  
“She’s taken a walk,” Dwight retorted, “and Lovesick here can’t stand that he’s been away from her for a whole thirty seconds.” The police chief’s eyes were an ice-hard glare, and Duke’s narrowed scathing in equal contempt.  
“Okay,” Nathan said, raising his arms in a pacifying manner, quickly assuming the role of mediator. “Why don’t we hear each other out – Duke, when did you see her last?”  
“It was yesterday,” and at that Nathan looked as if to say, come on, but Duke hurriedly added, “This is gut instinct! Man to man, when have I been ever been wrong following a gut feeling?”  
Nathan thought about this for a beat. “Never.”  
“Exactly!”  
“That I can recall,” Nathan qualified, not allaying the puffed chest and raised posture of Duke from an argument won.

Nathan turned to his superior. “Dwight, if this is true about Jennifer, we have to go out there and find her.”  
“I have a town to look after, Nathan,” Dwight said to him. “Sorry, but I can’t just drop everything on a whim to help one person. I need to be helping everyone.”  
“Jennifer is not just ‘anyone’, Chief. She’s the only one left who has any sort of connection to the barn – if we have any hope of ending the troubles, or finding Audrey,” his voice grew unsteady at her name, “we need to find her. Very badly,” Nathan said.  
“Okay,” Dwight conceded, deciding on a course of action that would please all of them. “Take Duke to see Hopkins, he can triangulate a location from Jennifer’s cell-phone. If she’s out of state, I’ll go with you to find her. But if she’s gone off shopping in Portland…”  
“We’ll pick her up ourselves, got it,” Nathan said, watching the Chief’s face sour at the mere thought.

Hopkins was a babyfaced police officer fresh out of college, but with a great mind for technology. Once they supplied the required phone number, he pulled up a location in mere seconds’ time, and proudly turned the computer screen for the older men to see.  
“That’s… that’s a forty five minute drive away,” Nathan said, narrowing his eyes at the familiar routes surrounding the place. He felt Duke squirm beside him as he identified the location too, stammering out pathetic responses.  
“But, that can’t be right,” Duke said lamely, “What would she be doing there? This machine’s broken, I--”  
“She’ll be back by tonight, Duke,” Nathan thundered, spitting out his name in particularly bad taste. “We don’t know what she’s doing there or what time she’ll be back, but she’s a grown woman and the least we can extend to her is respecting that she knows what she’s doing with herself.”  
“But I-“  
“You’re a giant baby.”  
“She di-“  
Nathan glared, stopping Duke’s speech in his throat, and strode away wordlessly leaving Duke wondering what on earth he’d done.


	2. Wicked Things, Haunting Melodies

Duke awoke the next morning, mind as full as the space beside him was empty. She still wasn’t back, and she still wouldn’t pick up her phone, and Duke didn’t like or understand it one bit. He was a man that could handle getting dumped, but the bright smiles and tender touches of when he’d seen Jennifer last didn’t equate in his mind to a relationship on its way out. Definitely not in such a sudden and unusual manner.

Like the day before, he was off to the police station like a shot first thing in the morning. Dwight was out of office, so Duke went to the next best thing and barged into Nathan’s.  
Nathan looked up from his computer and greeted him. “Hello, Duke.”  
“Make Hopkins do the map-thing again!”   
Nathan was taken aback by Duke’s early morning bleary eyed uncouthness. He’d definitely seen him worse for wear (he had trousers on, and his shirt wasn’t back to front, for starters) but at the same time, Nathan felt like he hadn’t. There was something different about his entire disposition that made Nathan feel all too eager to oblige him.

They went and quickly found Hopkins again, who pulled up the same search from the day before and started it off. Only this time instead of a location, the screen flashed up with an error message.  
“It didn’t do the thing!” Duke said anxiously. “Make it do the thing, Hopkins!”  
“System couldn’t triangulate a GPS,” Hopkins said, “That means either the phone is off, destroyed, or in a location where it can’t receive signal.”  
Duke put his hands on his head and let out a breath, trying to suppress the thoughts of the million and one scenarios that popped in his head when he heard that. “You see! Now we’ve lost her completely!”  
“Or her phone’s died,” Nathan said, but there was a lot more uncertainty in his speech.   
Duke calmed himself, attempting to shrug off the 9am crabbiness to speak candidly to his friend. “Look, I know Jennifer is her own person,” he began. “But if she wasn’t planning on making it back by last night she would have said something. I know she would have.” Brown eyes pleaded desperately to blue.

Swayed by the emotion in Duke’s voice, Nathan turned to Hopkins and asked, “Hey, is there any way we can get this on a portable device?” He indicated the desktop computer Hopkins sat behind.  
Hopkins nodded. “I can have it set up on a laptop for you in ten minutes.”   
“Good.” Nathan turned to his friend, smiled wryly. “Let’s go find ourselves a Jennifer Mason.”  
Relief and urgency washed over Duke all at once. Part of him had hoped all of this was just an irrational fantasy-illusion on his part, but the whole thing had taken a decisive step towards the very real. He hoped that it was all worth it, in the end. 

Nathan and Duke bundled into the Bronco and headed towards the small village that the GPS tracker told them was Jennifer’s last known location.   
“Make sure to keep an eye on that screen,” Nathan reminded Duke, who was sat beside him with the laptop computer awkwardly balanced on his knee. “System updates every few minutes; if it puts her back on the map we need to know right away.”  
The verdant country scenery passed in a blur as Nathan edged the line of the speed limit. The sense of urgency had mounted and spread between them, it was palpable every time Duke pressed the refresh button and the same error message appeared on the screen.  
“Look, we’re only a few minutes away now,” Nathan said, trying to fill the stony silence that had settled over them. “We’ll find her soon.” His words were as much to convince himself as reassure Duke, because the quiet, sad looking little town they had pulled into gave him some very unpromising vibes.

It was like something out of those budget horror movies, Nathan felt. The small, odd towns where the curtains twitched and people stared and old wives predicted your doom and howled malevolent cackles at you. Or maybe he had just been watching too many budget horror movies. Nevertheless, the deserted main road held several abandoned businesses on display, the shutters and errant graffiti marring the simplistic red-brick and clapboard buildings that surrounded it. People traffic was nonexistent, even in the late-morning approaching noon that should have been a lunch-hour rush. The people just weren’t there. It was a discouraging sight to say the least, but they remained dedicated, dropping into each open store to do the headshot waving, ‘have-you-seen-her’ routine.

A genuine assortment of experiences was had in each shop. Young kids with acne and indifferent shrugs, and very old people with gnarled expressions and wary disdain. Right off the bat it was clear that many of them were instinctively hostile to Nathan and Duke as outsiders, while others were polite, but genuinely unable to help them. It was the second to last business, a gun store, that gave them the positive they needed. The counter was tended by a surly man in his late 50s that licked his chops at the sight of Jennifer’s picture.   
“Yeah, I’ve seen that,” the man said, beady eyes lifting from Jennifer’s photo to Duke. “Walked through yesterday with a couple of guys.” He saw Duke’s face tense at that.  
"These guys, what do they look like," Nathan filled in.  
The man's eyes remained on Duke, and a switch went off in his head. He continued, trying to see if he could have some fun with the pirate looking guy. “Yeah, two men. One of them was only small, this little weedy kid with curly hair and glasses. But the other one, oof. About 6’7”, 6’8” with a beard, built like a brick house.” The man leaned his flabby arms on the counter, rubber mouth twisted into a cruel smirk. “Guess you’re glad she found a real man for herself, huh?”

Duke hadn’t risen to the bait, not for being a bigger person but because he had stopped hearing everything after the description of the two men. At first he thought the man was just blowing smoke to get on his nerves, but the descriptions were eerily similar, and from what Duke was thinking, couldn’t have been coincidence. Small guy with glasses along with a big guy? He shuddered as he remembered the sight of them, collapsing into tiny black globules, flying away in a swarm.   
Nathan, clearly as alarmed as his partner, had flipped open the laptop right on the front counter to scout for more information. The GPS software had begun to reload automatically, and the men watched as the marker moved from the northeast, to somewhere completely unexpected.  
Duke gasped audibly. “It can’t be?”  
Nathan’s eyes narrowed in deep concentration and concern. “If it is, we need to tell Dwight ASAP. Nathan slapped down the laptop screen as he made to rush out of the shop, and the village, going at a light jog now with Duke following pace. “No idea how she’s got there, but if she’s with those two… things, there’s no way it’s good.”


	3. Pushing Weight

Dwight was filled in on their journey back to Haven, and he could hardly believe what he was hearing at first. New Mexico? How? More worryingly, why was she with Shirley Temple and Big Boss Man? Things had taken on an entirely new level of gravity now. None of them had ever placed a lot of emphasis on Jennifer’s ‘specialness’ (at her insistence – it made her feel “like a kitten in a doghouse” as she put it) but her sudden departure brought it into maximum focus. Much like realising all known forms of life depended on a big burning ball in the sky that could disappear on a whim, once it was gone, he felt the worry deep inside him – a slow, controlled kneading of the nerves, like a baker to fresh dough. 

Yet another boulder for a man carrying the world on his shoulders.

If those things, the Troubles, had led her all the way to New Mexico somehow, it meant that William or Mara could still channel their power from whatever nether-world they inhabited now. Could they have teleported her? Dwight saw with his own eyes how they could deform into the black globules of pure evil they were made of at the switch of a button, perhaps they could have done it with Jennifer as well. Or it could have been an induced brainwashing sort of trouble, puppet strings leading Jennifer down roads and through airports as if nothing was amiss. Another possibility kicked around the back of his mind, but he stamped it out, refusing to let such a noxious thought manifest.

Entertaining the idea of buying them plane tickets, he pulled up at his house, jumped out of his car and kicked the door shut, making quick strides towards the front door beneath a cloudy Maine sky. T-shirts, socks, underwear – he threw the essentials and whatever else he cared to grab in a bag, scanning his house for anything else he might need, and turning on the television to fill the empty house with noise.

It was tuned to CNN, where the headlining news was spoken by a talking head:

_'Mass airline strikes across the United States have crippled the country’s transport, with thousands'_

He switched to the next station 

_'… where a Union-led strike has left air travellers stranded and…'_

Flipped over.

_'No end in sight for this misery at the airports.'_

_Damn._ There went that idea. Inside the kitchen, he hauled a trash bag out of the bin, ready to take out of the house and into the metal can that stood outside. Back inside he filled his bag, making sure not to leave anything behind, doubling back and realising he’d forgotten to get his mail, too. 

Out of the bedroom, through the front door and outside when he saw her. Jordan, on his path, dark hair whipping in the wind as she seemingly prepared to approach the house. She waited for him.  
“Kinda busy Jordan, what do you need?” Dwight strode past her on the way to the mail, got it, and flicked through his envelopes as he walked back in his house. Jordan followed him in, closing the door.

“Busy with what?” she lead, standing in one place as Dwight went between rooms, dropping things and picking them up and opening and closing drawers.  
He stopped for a second, just in front of Jordan, to look her in the eyes and say, “Police business. Official police business.”  
“Like what kind of business?” Jordan called out to Dwight, now in the kitchen.  
“Like none of yours,” he called back.  
Right. Of course, there was always a narrow chance she’d get a straight answer with Dwight, so she cut straight to the point. “We know that Jennifer is missing, you know.” At this, Dwight was called to attention again, abandoning an ice cooler he was holding to approach her. “Don’t look so surprised, you know our connections run deep. Not that your… people have exactly been subtle about this.”  
Dwight could have curled a lip at the plurality. She referred to The Guard. “Look, Jordan-” he began.  
“No Dwight, you look. You should have spoken up as soon as this became an issue. This stops being ‘just an investigation’ when it’s about her. Jennifer Mason is our only hope now of ending the troubles, and that makes this Guard business too, despite what you may think. However much you think you can keep this to yourselves, know that we will _always_ be there, know that we-"

“Jordan, I don’t have the time. What exactly do you mean by all this?” Dwight interrupted. Jordan opened her mouth hesitantly, but Dwight continued. “Guard this, Guard that – you’re always going to be there, so what, you’re gonna be following us all the way to New Mexico?” Dwight crossed his arms, and narrowed his eyes at a now uncertain Jordan. “You’re gonna skulk in the shadows, follow us around, pick up left pieces of trash so you can track clues, is that it?” His voice was sardonic, emphatically so.  
Jordan wouldn’t be put off. She raised her head and boldly levelled her gaze to Dwight’s. “Whatever it takes.”  
Dwight privately admired her dedication – never considering for a second giving props about anything to do with that organisation. “Well, if you’re bent on going through with this, you might as well just come with us,” he reasoned.  
This invitation was the last thing Jordan expected to hear. The thought of spending hours travelling in close proximity to Crocker and Wuornos began to form in her head, and her stomach flipped unpleasantly as she stammered a reply. “Thanks, but, I think it’s best not to…”  
Dwight half-raised his eyebrows, mild surprise crossing his features. “Suit yourself. I don’t know how you’re going to manage the trip, though – flights are closed and it’s a looong drive.” 

He was right, Jordan knew. One of the first things that had crossed her mind upon learning Jennifer had skipped to New Mexico was the convenience of it – or rather, lack of. The airline strikes had started at midnight of that day; if she was in New Mexico so fast it meant she’d caught a plane just minutes before flight services were cancelled. So Jordan’s only options would have been a haphazard series of train journeys, or a car journey that would have taken her days to complete by herself. And The Guard would not be pleased if they’d found out she’d passed up a ride because of who happened to be going along. Not when she would lose valuable hours, if not days, that could have been spent helping bring Jennifer home to end the troubles.

Watching Jordan weigh her choices, Dwight leaned in closer to speak the next words, extra important, hovering at her ear – “You know, they’re not _that_ bad, Jordan.”  
Neither was Dwight himself. In fact, the man’s presence would neutralise any flaring irritations from the Brothers Dim, she was sure. He was a steadfast beacon of calm, and, as it happened, also incredibly persuasive up close.

Jordan chewed a lip, looking at Dwight, away, and back again. “Alright.” Jordan said. “But only if I get to call shotgun.”  
"Shotgun's yours. Just get some stuff together, I'm picking you up in a half hour." He called out to Jordan, who was now outside heading away from his house. "Be ready though! We really don't have a lot of time."


	4. Drive.Ride.Drive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ride to.

It was a breakneck drive back to town for Nathan and Duke, with all caution of speed limits thrown out of the window. Nathan left his car running while he dashed inside his house, grabbed a fistful of shirts out of a drawer, threw some toiletries in a bag, then dashed back out to drive himself and Duke down to the Cape Rouge. They were already running short on time and Dwight would be around to pick them up at any minute, so Nathan watched Duke run headless gathering his things in a similar fashion, albeit in a much less decisive way.

“Duke, you’d better hurry up,” Nathan called, standing outside his door. “Dwight is gonna be here any minute, and we’re going as soon as he comes.” Duke had been in his bedroom ten minutes already, which didn’t seem like long but was still ten times longer than Nathan had spent at his place. Ten times as long as what they could afford to spend for menial issues like these.  
When Nathan didn’t hear a reply, he persisted, growing slightly annoyed at Duke’s dalliance. “Come on, what is taking in there?” He threw Duke’s door open to find him kneeling at his wardrobe, clothes strewn in and around (mainly around) an open backpack in front of him.  
“I don’t know what shoes I should bring!” Wide eyed, Duke looked up to him as if facing the biggest challenge of his life. “This pair has better grip but they’re kind of horrible looking and I-”

He was cut off by a sound above-deck: a double tap of the horn, from Dwight, indicating his arrival. They were ready to roll.

“Alright, we have to leave, now,” Nathan said authoritatively. He attempted to pick up the scattered items Duke had left laying around to help with the packing, the complete opposite of a docile Duke that had seemingly taken root.  
“Earth to Duke! Hello!” Nathan hadn’t wanted to shout, but Duke’s slow moving didn’t make any sense. Not when he was the one that urged action before anyone else. Not when Dwight was outside pressing the car-horn again for a second time. Finding Duke’s love gave Nathan a chance to find his own, which is why the other man’s lethargy confused and aggravated him.

“I hope she’s okay,” Duke said softly. The tail end of his speech was blown away by Dwight, who leaned on the car horn now, leaving no breathing room for the blaring, headache inducing noise. Nathan, who was on his way out, practically whipped his head around at those words, understanding before he fully heard.  
“Jennifer’s fine,” Nathan said fiercely, with all the conviction he didn’t feel. “Duke, you-”

At this point the drone of the car horn was replaced by another that succeeded in bringing their attention – a car revving its engine, preparing to leave. Nathan and Duke scrambled above board, approaching a car that was half pulled out into the street, and climbed inside the back.

“Aw man, what the hell? Dwight, you brought Crazy-Town?” Nathan chuckled quietly to himself at the immediate change in Duke’s demeanour. He’d definitely take snippy over melancholic any day of the week, and so for once, he found himself feeling glad for Jordan’s presence. A rarity, to say the least.  
“Yeah, well you’re not exactly--” Jordan began, preparing to lash venom at the other man.  
“I brought Jordan,” Dwight said evenly, cutting Jordan off, as well as the argument, “because we need the extra pair of hands. This is unknown territory to all of us, remember, and four heads are a lot better than three.”  
“Well, still. You didn’t have to let her have shotgun!”  
“Excuse you,” Jordan snapped, turning in her seat. “I have as much right to be in this seat as anyone, and on top of that…”  
Dwight willfully tuned out of the bickering that had started up not five minutes into their thirty hour journey. He would not regret this, he would not, he would not. Duke and Jordan were grown, they’d pipe down once they realised this argument was silly and pointless. Or they’d scream themselves hoarse in the confines of the car… eventually… right? Dwight turned into the highway, and was struck with near nausea at the sight that greeted him. Cars, cars and more cars clogged the road, airport rejects desperate to get to their destinations. A groan of pure anguish as he sunk his forehead to the steering wheel, nagging voices still pecking at each other beside him. They clouded and crowded his headspace.  
“If you two are done?” Dwight said strongly, halting them both to silence. The stop-start traffic had already drained him enough, he couldn’t take it from those two as well.  
“Sorry. I’m just… stressed out,” Duke said, the last two words more of a whisper than a defiant retort. Right arm leaning against the car door, he rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefingers, already cagey in the back seat.

Nathan beside him was much worse. Sitting behind the long-legged Chief didn’t leave a whole lot of legroom, and he found himself in an odd sitting position to accommodate. He was subdued, but still full of ideas as always.  
“I think this highway leads right off one of the airports,” Nathan said. “It’s chock blocked, there’s no way we have time to stay on this stretch. If we take the next exit, the secondary roads should be better.”  
“Good idea,” Jordan said, complimenting Nathan before she could remember herself. She winced, thought to correct herself, but Dwight’s input saved her from having to say anything.  
“That’s the plan. If my guess is correct, then most of these people aren’t locals – just out of town people stuck without knowing where to go. In which case most of them won’t think to use the other roads.”  
“Exit’s only a mile up,” Nathan said.  
“I see it,” Dwight nodded. “The problem is getting there…” 

The traffic flowed like lumpy gruel on the eight-lane highway. Horns blared, curse words were exchanged, tension boiled off the tarmac. Traffic barely inched forward. Becoming aware that they weren’t going anywhere any time soon, Dwight took the time to relax his body, loosening his limbs and rolling his wrists and neck, setting his head back all the way on his headrest.  
“You alright?” Jordan asked, noticing his change in posture.  
“Yeah. Shoulder’s nagging a bit, you know how it is.”  
“If you need me to drive, I’m wide open,” Jordan offered. She was concerned at the idea of him driving long distances while hurting, but then again, there was hardly a time where one part of his body or another wasn’t bothering him in some way. The aches simply came with the territory.

Dwight cast his eyes from the car’s windshield towards Jordan, giving her the faintest hint of a smile, the corner of his mouth barely rising. It was a ‘Don’t worry about me, I’m okay’ before he sat back up and nudged the accelerator, rolling them forward a few inches in the standing parking lot.

The stop-start was dragging and draining on all of them, so much so that even Duke was reduced to silence eventually. Dwight finally pinpointed the conspicuous absence, and called out Duke’s name with sudden alarm.  
“Duke’s asleep,” Nathan said. “Out cold, and has been for a while too, poor guy.” Duke’s face was a blank slate, bobbing along limply with the ongoing journey, void of everything that made him Duke. The worry and anxiety that had drawn his facial features to scowls recently were erased. So were the silly expressions that followed his often-inappropriate jokes. Nathan was suddenly struck by that – that sometimes peace was found only in the bottomless inertia known as sleep, sought for solace but so much like that other thing humans knew and feared. 

It wasn’t long until the rest of the car passengers joined him. Or it was – Dwight wasn’t entirely sure. The traffic had all but evaporated, and he had reached that part of the non-stop straight ahead journey where he couldn’t pinpoint lapsed time or distance any more. For a while he had Jordan to anchor him, sharing a few occasional words about nothing at all, but when his latest remark was greeted with silence he checked the seat beside him to see her slouched over, eyes closed and breathing softly through her parted lips.

His own eyes were beginning to sting, but he could handle driving for a while yet, thanks to the single direction route they took. It left Dwight ample time to admire the broad sky before them, a suggestion of pink beginning to tint its colour. The faint warmth of the sun was still glowing on the right side of his face, gilding his countenance, and the forms of the sleeping passengers around him. Wide open road made this last hurrah even more spectacular – the colour in the sky had turned fierce hot-pink, exploding over the horizon, ablaze. Night would cast down over them in a matter of minutes, but for the while, the day belonged to sunset.

Dwight’s eyes screwed shut with a massive yawn. The day’s farewell had reminded him that he was getting tired. He must ask someone to take over soon. Nathan’s voice caught him by surprise.  
“Pull over Dwight, I can take the wheel,” he said. Dwight wasn’t aware he had even been awake, and wondered how long for, and if Nathan had heard him humming those outrageously terrible mid-90s pop songs a while ago. He hoped not.

Compliantly, Dwight pulled over to the hard shoulder, and the two men switched seats. Folding himself into the back, he was surprised at how he felt once he was there. All of his fatigue was on top of him at once, so that he was fighting to stay awake within minutes. The soothing roll of the car was irresistible, and eventually, he succumbed.

The nocturnal ride was Nathan’s, then. The near-silence of the road and his passengers didn’t bother him, and neither did the patchy illumination from the streetlights and the sliver of silver moon overhead. In fact, it was comforting to him – odd, because a few months ago that darkness and that silence would have tormented him, driven him insane with memories of her that he couldn’t escape. He’d needed noise, commotion, anything to get her out of there – even strangers punching him in the face for cash and laughs. For some reason it was different this time around, where he couldn’t imagine her away from him after being in her arms, spending glorious time with the woman he loved more than anything, it was that certainty that had only strengthened his resolution instead of breaking it. He had to be with her, and not in a desperate forlorn longing – he had to like the sun had to rise tomorrow, like the wind blew, and like stock brokers had to rip people off. There was no greater certainty in his life.

Taking a leaf out of Dwight’s book, he began to hum the cheesiest radio diddy that came to his mind. One that had come on the radio just before Nathan had left work one day, leaving her rolling her eyes and groaning at the “bubblegum commercial trash” as she called it. Nathan caught her singing it softly to herself a few days later and he’d never smiled as big in his life. He grinned now too, stifling his laugh with everything he had as he remembering her whimsical reply, “I didn’t say it wasn’t _catchy_ bubblegum commercial trash.” Feeling the road passing underneath his feet gave him renewed purpose, even though he probably shouldn’t have let himself get his hopes up. Even if they didn’t find Jennifer, or even if they didn’t have anything to say about finding Audrey or even ending the troubles – the stars were out in full force and he would have lied under them with her, and being robbed of that chance wasn’t something he would take lying down. So he set his jaw and ploughed ahead, gripping the steering wheel with fervour towards the inky black night.


	5. Last Ride In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They finally (finally!) approach their destination, where all their questions will be answered.

There was only so much time anyone could take in a static seated position, and by first light all four travellers were groggy, cramped, and very hungry. They pulled out at a service station and found an iHOP just opening up, which felt like the most beautiful thing any of them had ever seen at that point. Pushing past each other on the way in, they startled the waitress, who was their only company in the diner save for a backpacking couple in a booth at the other end. They put their orders in and took the bar stools, saddling up to face the kitchen, and a slightly grimy tile back wall.

Duke groaned at the far end, stifling a yawn and stretching. “I feel like mould.” He looked barely able to keep himself upright in his stool.  
Nathan was in a somewhat better condition, but he couldn’t help but agree. The waitress had poured all four a fresh coffee, black, and Nathan stared into the mug, nodding to himself. “This coffee’s probably the only thing keeping me going right now,” he said quietly.  
Jordan piped up. “What I wouldn’t give for even the sleaziest of dive motels right now,” she said dreamily. “A hot shower, fresh clothes… a bed…” Despite the golden sunlight beginning to stream in through the large, grease filmed windows and scattering off the linoleum, all four of them sighed audibly at the mere mention of a proper place to sleep.  
“As much as I would love to, we can’t,” Dwight said gently, deflating the bubble of hope, reminding them of the more ominous purpose of their voyage. “We have a lot of ground to cover, and every minute counts for things like this. We still don’t know what kind of situation she’s in – Duke?”  
“I tried her just now. Still three tones then voicemail,” he confirmed, not at all reassured by it.  
“Right. We have no idea. Right now, finding Jennifer safe is the end game. Then we can do whatever the hell we want, and…” Dwight’s attention was stolen by the sight of pancakes leading in from the kitchen, dancing towards him. They were stacked thick and high, syrup cascading over the sides in a honeyed drizzle. His stomach growled in anticipation. He dug right in, wasting no time on the fresh breakfast, and the others soon followed suit as their orders made their way out as well. They fell to comfortable silence, hearing nothing for a while except the clash of forks on plates, and the occasional lip smacking. 

After a while, Jordan set her knife and fork down, letting out a dreamy sigh.  
Dwight eyed her plate, which still had an entire untouched blueberry pancake on it, smothered in syrup. “You gonna eat that?”  
Jordan shook her head no, and Dwight gladly transferred the syrup-soaked piece onto his plate. Within three or four bites, it was disappeared, devoured entirely by the ravenous blonde.  
“Please, go on, you’ve hardly eaten a thing,” Jordan said half-mockingly.  
“I’m a growing boy,” Dwight shrugged, wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Excuse me, miss? I’d like another order…”

Meanwhile Duke sat at his stool, fork pushing the contents of his mostly-full plate around, other hand busy dialling and redialling the same number over, and over.  
Nathan looked up at him. “Don’t play that game, Duke,” he said gently.  
Duke dropped his fork altogether at this, looking fed up and frustrated. “I just don’t understand what this is about. I can’t.”  
“None of us do. That’s why we’re going to get her home safe and put this all behind us.”  
“Yeah, that’s what you keep saying, right? Well what if Jennifer can’t go home? Even if she can, what if she can’t end the troubles any more? What if the cronies Mara sent after her messed her up permanently? You could kiss your dreams of a trouble-free Haven goodbye - kind of ironic, if you think of it.”

Nathan’s nostrils flared at the unwelcome commentary. He wanted to tear Duke’s head off for calling Audrey _that_ name, but he bit his tongue. “We’d cross that bridge if we got to it,” he said hoarsely, suddenly not feeling much of an appetite for his pancakes either. And he loved pancakes.

“Hey, Duke, are you guys finished with those pancakes over there?”

The last stretch would be the hardest. None of them wanted to get back into the box-on-wheels, but they bore it silently. Duke had the wheel, Jordan had taken the back and Dwight was beside her, possibly lapsed into a mild diabetic coma. Nathan rode shotgun. Since they were beginning to reach their destination, Nathan got the laptop computer out, hitting a few keys to verify their location.  
“Okay, we’re still quite a few hours away,” he said, “but when we get there it’s a town not too far off the border of New Mexico.”  
“Got a name yet?”  
“Mmhm. Town by the name of Trujillo.” He looked up. “Huh. My ninth grade Spanish teacher was called Trujillo.”  
“Hopefully it’s a sign,” Duke said. His refusal to let up on the accelerator meant that they were making good time, but also giving Nathan heart palpitations with every curve and dip in the road. It was a miracle Dwight and Jordan managed to stay quietly resting at that maniacal pace. Light traffic forced him to slow down (Nathan thanked the gods) and he also become aware of the warmth creeping into the air. 

Duke fiddled with the air conditioning controls, but nothing happened. He called his friend. “Dwight. Hey, Dwight, how do you work this thing?”  
“ ‘s normal,” he said, sleep weighing his voice. “Turn the thing.”  
“I did turn the thing, it’s not doing anything.” When Dwight didn’t respond, he continued. “Come on man, it’s hot, help us out.”  
Dwight let out a groan low in his throat, stretching his massive arms over his head before leaning forward between the two front seats. He messed with the controls on the dash, and nothing changed.  
“See, that’s exactly what I did.” Duke kept one eye on the steadily moving traffic. “Nothing.”  
Dwight flipped more knobs, opened a slider and banged the compartment once for good measure. They waited for the reassuring ‘whoosh’ of air conditioning. It never came.  
“I have something,” Jordan said from the back. “It’s coming out, but not really. Barely.” One of the small vents puffed pathetic bursts of air on the back of her hand, despite the control at the front being turned to ‘MAX POWER.’  
“Son of a bitch,” Dwight said, feeling the same thing from his own side of the seat. “Of all the times for the air conditioning to be on the fritz.”  
“To be fair,” Nathan offered, “When’s the last time you had to use air conditioning in Haven?”  
“Yeah, but stuff like this doesn’t usually happen to this car.” Dwight cursed again, feeling a bead of sweat sprouting at his hairline. Really, really bad timing.  
“Well, how long is it until we get there?” Jordan asked.  
“Do you really want to know?” Nathan replied bleakly. He looked at the computer’s estimate for their current location; “APPROX 5.HRS TO ARRIVAL” and closed its lid, staring ahead through the windshield to the ever gaining heat.

Noon approached. Hell on earth inside the car. Windows had been opened for ‘fresh’ air, but it was only a matter of time until they realised they were being slapped in the face with walls of musty heat surges . Nathan in the front was feeling fresh as a daisy, somewhat comfortable in his trouble for once. He remembered to keep hydrated by observing the slumped, parched figures around him, and that way he played caretaker too, intermittently handing out water and attempting to fan the driver.

Jordan and Dwight were dying in the back. Dwight had unbuttoned several of the buttons on his pale blue work shirt already, but he had to excuse himself to undo the rest of the buttons, tuck it over his head and remove it entirely. Jordan next to him had shed her leather jacket, but the longsleeve maroon t-shirt she wore underneath was still restrictive, and not at all forgiving to the heat. Looking at Dwight’s bare chest and shoulders exposed to the air made her ache for the same, but it seemed like she was doomed to sit there and cook. Her leather gloves had come off for the faintest bit of respite, but she forced herself to accept the fact that that was all she could take.

Dwight could feel the heat rolling off him in waves. He lay his head over the seat back, eyes barely open as he focused on nothing – oppressive heat and particularly bad stretch of traffic be damned. It was hellish heat, impossible heat, the likes of which Dwight had only experienced a couple of times besides -- one summer spent at an Atlanta farm house, , and his first few weeks in Kuwait. The latter brought about more pronounced recollection; he was a greenhorn at the time, barely out of high school when the army had started looking more and more like a good idea – until he was being shipped to the Persian Gulf, head still itching from his buzzcut. The heat’s oppression was compounded by the humidity, and the gritty sand that found itself into every space imaginable. Taking his shift on guard outside the armoury was a battle on his first day. It was horrible; squinting against the glare of a low sun, constantly shifting his weight to relieve the pinching in his boots, and trying to ignore the oppressive heat and humidity that suffocated him, even as late into the afternoon as it was. He made it through, but in such a daze that a thousand rebel insurgents could have walked in and helped themselves to weapons for all he knew. The second day, he wonderfully lucked out on the midday shift. About fifteen minutes in he sensed himself on the ground, being shaken, water splashed on his face by a medic and only then hearing that he has passed out from sun-stroke. Useless was an understatement – Dwight felt like his presence was a disservice to military everywhere until the reassuring words from his captain. As a Minnesota native, the older man recognised the difficulty in adjusting to warmer climes in Dwight, and had given him invaluable advice that day. _'It's all in the mind. You're overheating because all you let yourself think about is how hot you are. Try thinking about being cold for a change, and you'll never face heat you can't handle again.'_ When he remembered that, he felt himself slowly getting to grips with himself. It wasn't exactly breezy for him now, but if he could keep his state of mind as level as it was now, he'd be fine.

Something smacked Dwight in the face with a frying pan then. He sat up, reacting against the sudden, enormous headache he’d developed out of the blue, pinching the bridge of his nose from what felt like the early onset of a heavy nosebleed. He grunted at the physical pain squeezing his head to the roots of his teeth, and then just as soon as it came, it was gone again.  
Judging by the expressions of everyone else, he wasn’t the only one that had felt it either. Jordan clutched the back of her head from the shockwaves, and even Duke in the front seat spoke up.  
“My ears just popped like if I was in a plane,” Duke said. “But it was a thousand times worse. Phoo-wee, we really have been in this car for way too long. Nathan, how long until we’re there? Nathan?”

Nathan had taken a while to respond because he’d lost himself completely in his own concerns. He undid his top button, and slowly ran a hand over his damp head, clearing his throat and his mind to continue.  
“Um, right, sorry.” Loading up the software again, he hit some keys to configure their current location. “Oh look, we’re only about twenty miles away from it now. We’re practically there, it shouldn’t be long at all until we-”  
Obviously he would be interrupted by a troublesome noise coming from the front of the car. “Hey, what was that?” Duke said warily.  
“Nothing, probably,” Dwight said, with a lot more confidence than he felt. “Just keep going.”  
Of course, it was a lot more than nothing. The whining noise persisted, developing into choking splutters as Duke eased on the acceleration, for fear of blowing the engine completely. All of them rode on tenterhooks, and Dwight in particular, keeping watch over Duke’s shoulder to see if the car had enough in it to get them the few remaining miles to Trujillo. It was a brave attempt, but the travelled car spluttered to a halt on a sand covered, one lane road in the final few miles of their journey.

Dwight exited the car, into the full force of the New Mexico heat, too wearied to even gripe. The others took the opportunity to stretch their legs while Dwight leaned into the driver’s side to pop the hood. A worrying plume of smoke drifted into the air along with it.

Some weeds and distant cacti kept them company. Dark wings circled overhead.

Leaning down over the engine gave Dwight plenty of reason to grumble, though. Nathan came up alongside him and asked what had happened, Dwight responded, and the two descended into an exchange of mechanical jargon that left Duke and Jordan completely nonplussed.

“God,” Jordan sighed, turning away from Dwight, arm and back muscles rippling as he went to work on the engine. “Of all the times, of all the places…”  
Duke, overhearing her, chipped in. “This town is all the way out in the boonies.” He looked out at the horizon, which held the faint hazy lines of undulating mountains in the distance. “And now, so are we.”  
No buildings, no cars, no signposts. It was as if they had been sneezed into the wasteland with nothing else in sight. Nothing except the disused road, crisscrossed by thick cracks gained from expansion during the extremes of the desert days. The afternoon was gaining now, at least – it was closer to evening, and the smothering, piercing fire of the sun was finally held at bay.  
“Computer says the town’s two miles down that road,” Duke said, pointing down the road that wound its way down the barren plain and in between two mountains.  
“Two miles?” The distance sat bitter in Jordan’s mouth. Two miles wasn’t a lot at all on paper, but they had been driving non-stop for over a day now, and Jordan had never experienced anything like it in her life. Her limbs had turned into noodles, she could barely walk three consecutive steps, and her neck had a kink in it like a mother. And the jeans, boots and gloves that contained her, only helped to make everything ten times as uncomfortable -- honestly, at this point, lying down in the dirt sounded like a much more appealing option.

Nathan supported his friend, but he wasn’t going to wait for Dwight to pick them out of this mess. For sure it would take a while for the breakdown recovery services to get them all the way out here, but it was still worth a shot. He got out his phone and looked up their number, lifting the receiver and putting it down when he heard three beeps, then silence. ‘NO SIGNAL’ – the error message on the display was wide and clear, showing the empty bars symbol in the top corner for emphasis.

He turned to Jordan and Duke. “Any of you two have signal?”  
Both of them fished out their phones, soon realising that they were in exactly the same boat. Duke raised his phone to the darkening sky, as if making an offering to the gods. But his efforts went unrewarded.  
Duke averted his attention to the road, narrowing his eyes when he made out a figure, walking towards them. “Hey, look.” He nudged Nathan and nodded over. “Let’s ask that guy, maybe he has signal, or could help us out.”

He was a wiry man that walked quickly, with his head down and covered in a blue baseball cap. The coat he wore looked old and tattered. It was only as he was closer that Jordan realised how incredibly fast he was walking, and when he was too close, why he walked with the odd gait as well. She sucked in her breath as he revealed the shotgun he hid behind his back. 

It was as if he was ready for her as well, because as Jordan weighed up how long it would take her to remove her gloves and lunge for him, he cocked the shotgun once and raised it level.

“Do not move.”

Dark wings circled overhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm glad I finally started on this. Fallout/Breaking Bad influences always made me want to write in the desert. Plus Jennifer's about to show up (finally... finally)


	6. Bullet Club

All the desert heat in the world wouldn’t have been able to prevent the slow, gripping chill that came over Jordan. She was acutely aware of the fact that they were out in the middle of nowhere, with no phone signal and no one around to even hear a gunshot, much less manifest concern over one, and she tried not to let the extreme isolation play on her thoughts. Instead she calculated the situation, her surroundings, if there was anything she could use as leverage or against him? Would he listen to reason? His stance was collected, arms level and legs apart, but despite not being able to see his eyes she could sense an unsettlement about him. It wasn’t the prettiest option, but maybe a brute charge would disarm him, by sheer numbers, before he got too many shots off. The thoughts blinked through her mind faster than she could count them; thoughts in overdrive in times of crisis were a familiar occurrence, but on this particular one she’d skipped over a particular detail that halted those ideas in their tracks.

Jordan’s stomach lurched a second, deeper time as she flicked her eyes to the side, remembering the tall blonde man that stood a few paces away. The one that liked to redirect bullets. And the one that definitely wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest to make up for the fact.

Not only was Dwight missing his kevlar (stupidly, foolishly discarded in the footwell of the back seat) he didn’t have a stitch on him from the waist up at all. He willed himself to action, forcing the years of training and dealing with civillians to diffuse what seemed to be an unplanned assault. His line of sight had narrowed drastically, and he was acutely conscious of everything in his immediate surroundings, that had slowed to a warped, lagging fraction of time. The yellow and black lurch of a fat, floating wasp that buzzed loud and harsh by his ear, dust motes that caught an isolated patch of sunlight, swirling in the brightness before disappearing -- even the torn fabric on the bill of the man’s cap was brought into hyperfocus as Dwight’s nerves and lungs constricted, forcing his breathing to a shallow rasp that rattled in his ears.

An older man wearing a pinstripe shirt walked up and joined the blue-cap. Calmly, wordlessly, he drew his pistol and levelled it to Nathan’s face.  
“Hey, come on man.” Duke spoke, the first one to do so, desperate for anything to settle a situation that he still hadn’t quite fully processed was happening. And as he hadn’t done, it had only gotten progressively worse: Dwight, statuesque in the back. Jordan was more or less the same. And Nathan had the dark barrel of a handgun painting straight at his skull.

“Don’t speak,” the older man drawled. He addressed Duke, but held gaze with Nathan, whose blue eyes blazed defiantly as he refused to turn away.  
“I’m just saying,” he continued, slowly, tentatively, anything to make these outlaws see sense, “There is really no point to this. You can’t steal our car, because it’s broken down. You can’t steal our money, because we don’t have any. Well, I have about twelve bucks and a coupon for Burger King, bu-"   
Duke was cut off by the crack of a firearm, shot once, loudly, just past Nathan’s head into the darkening violet of the New Mexico sky. Shockwaves resonated through the wasteland. It was a warning shot, crueller and harsher than he could ever know. Because instead of careering harmlessly into the air or the ground, it would spin its woe towards centre-mass of Dwight Hendrickson, burying itself in his flesh, tearing arteries and vital organs that would spill their blood into a lung, leaving him on the ground, breathless, choking scarlet as he grew still, eyes glazed over once and for all.

Or, peculiarly, it really would just disappear into the air and leave him alone.

“Enough,” Pinstripe said sternly. “Start walking, all of you, and no one dies.”  
Concern over the man beside her made Jordan register the turn of plans in the secondary. She only glanced at Dwight, and the dark, harrowed, crushing panic she saw in him wrenched her heart. They had all heard the gunshot, it was too loud to mistake, yet Dwight shuffled along beside her completely intact. A part of her wondered if the man fired a blank. She didn’t dare test him to find out. Gritty sand caked every part of Jordan – her hair, face and clothes were becoming intolerable with it, and mixed with the dull ache eminating from her joints and muscles she began to almost not care what happened to her from this point on. The two men had lowered their guns, and they shuffled along silently, but Jordan knew that it was likely they were instead trained squarely at spine level, ready to take them out at a moment’s notice if they tried anything.

So they moved along, seemingly to pass by the range of mountains that approached them to the side, but instead, cutting through a crevice, where she began to see the first signs of civilisation. They weren’t promising ones, mind – the rusted, burned out shell of a car sat on cylinders was the signpost that welcomed them to the settlement. Soon buildings followed, single-room huts of concrete and corrugated iron clustered together. Without warning, these stopped at a juncture, where a bisecting road separated these, with the larger, brighter complexes that flashed their lights in the gaining twilight. The building at the corner held the most impressive neon sign – reading ‘Dino’s’, spanning the height of the multi-story pale-brick establishment that dwarfed the houses on the opposite side. The elaborate appearance of this town surprised her, for a little place hidden away behind a remote mountain range. Jordan would have liked to keep going down the main road, but she remembered herself by the rude jab of a shotgun at her back. It caught her off guard and sent her falling to the ground. Her captor roughly grabbed her by the forearm, not caring that her sleeve had ridden up, tugging at her regardless to get up off the ground.

Jordan was sure she had felt his skin make contact, but he did not react, or otherwise indicate anything was out of the ordinary. It unnerved her. The guy must have had nerves of steel to play it off so nonchalantly. Jordan struggled to come to terms with the impossibility, reasoning instead that she could have imagined the touch in her travel-weariness and fatigue. 

They were forced into a generic office front, with a short, dark skinned young man taking watch at reception. As they entered, the older man wordlessly led into the back, with the receptionist following, and Bluecap dutifully keeping the gun pointed their way. The overhead fluorescents were glaring, pronouncing their sallow skin and the shadows under their eyes. Only a few seconds until the older man reappeared again, and they were bundled back out into the street heading the way they came. They entered the double doors of that first building that they had seen, which had a spacious open-plan interior of a hotel lobby. Yet at first impressions it also showed itself a museum – everything was antiquated and almost fossilised, from the furniture and upholstery of the chairs, to the gramophone that stood in the far corner of the lounge area. It looked like no one had as much as touched any of it for at least a quarter century. Another man was behind the reception here, who was mid-thirties with a ruler-straight haircut and horn rimmed black spectacles.

He looked up from his desk, and only slight movement of the eyes betrayed his rapid assessment of the scenario before him: four people in front of him barely carrying their own bones, covered in dirt, one shirtless, accompanied by a fine array of weapons on show from two… associates. He nodded to them, and they withdrew their weapons, folding away into the night to leave his guests.

His mouth curled into a smile. “Hello, and welcome to Dino’s. Pleasure to have you with us today. I’ll be checking in four singles, correct?”  
No one said a word. “Well I’ll book in the singles, and if any of you change your mind we can fix that in a second, alright? Do you have your bags with you?”   
The receptionist looked up to a sea of utterly perplexed faces. “Or I’m assuming they’re still in the car, in which case that will all be arranged.” He gave that smile again, a quick twist of the features that managed to keep the glazed, dead look of his eyes perfectly intact. “Escobar will be escorting you during your stay here,” he said, and on cue, a stumpy, gnarled man in scruffy civillian’s clothes came out. It didn’t take a lot of looking to notice the outline of a holster on his waistband. “If you need anything at all, at any time, don’t be afraid to ask him!” Escobar did not smile as he stared at the four of them, going over to the receptionist that handed four sets of keys to him, and headed towards the elevators without a word.

The four of them followed, staring at Escobar’s back. They were no longer at gunpoint – their combined force easily outweighed the time and effort the man would need to draw and fire – so technically… technically they could leave. Technically they could start working to find what they came for, asking questions the nice way or not so nicely, and tracking down clues to find Jennifer. The thought was swiftly followed by a rising sense of panic – she had no idea why they were playing nice, but she knew it couldn’t possibly be of any good, and she knew she should find a way to talk herself out of it before it was too late. The idea sparked in her mind, but after unimaginable hours of travel her body was dead weight that would not co-operate with what her brain was telling her, so instead she marched, zombie like, to a room and hot shower and the ever inviting pull of sleep.


End file.
